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- Oct 24, 2014
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Now drinking my first chilled pint of my first GB brew! :drink:
Actually, tbh, I'm not quite as happy as the little smiley icon seems to be.
Basically pleased, but my next batch will be done differently.
The results of this one first:
Nicely gingery and fairly hot, but not extremely so. In fact, as far as 'fiery gingeryness' goes, it's not far off just about right for me (I like it spicy) A tad hotter wouldn't be unwelcome. but not essential.
It's strong. I calculate abv at about 8%, just one pint and I can feel it. Nice! :wink:
Carbonation is very gentle but I think I may have actually forgotten to add priming sugar
Really can't remember. Gentle sparkle as opposed to volcanic fizz is actually quite pleasant.
Now for the not so good.
At bottling, this brew was extremely thin. It somehow had an even thinner mouthfeel than water, if that's possible. It was also unenjoyably bone dry. I like dry, but this was OTT dry. So I added 5 teaspoonfulls of glycerin (total) and 70g of Tesco aspartame based sweetener.
That was the mistake. It now has an unpleasant artificial sweetener twang. Serves me right, I was too mean to spend the extra on Splenda, which is the recommended brand. Or perhaps the glycerin is contributing? Maybe Splenda wouldn't be any nicer.. Really don't know. Oh, and it now tastes too sweet as well.
But it's not undrinkable, so I'll learn from this and hope to improve my next one which I got going two days ago.
Recipe:
1kg grated root ginger
6 teaspoons of ground ginger
3kg white sugar
5 teaspoonfuls glycerin
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
4 teaspoons Wilco wine yeast
4 tsps yeast nutrient
6 oranges, zest from all, pulp & juice from 3, juice only from other 3
1) Grate ginger root, zest/pulp/juice oranges, boil all for 10 minutes with all other ingredients except the yeast.
2) Strain through sterilised colander into (sterilised) fv
3) Disolve sugar in hot, just below boilingwater for 20 minutes with a spoonful of citric acid (lemon juice would have done). I've read that this 'inverts' the sugar, making it easier and quicker for the yeast to metabolise the sugar.
4) Put strained ginger/orange etc into muslin bag which was weighted. Squeeze bag to get juice into brew (will repeat this squeeze at intervals during fermentation)
5) Tie bag with string and suspend from fv lid to keep it off the bottom - don't want to disturb the sediment when I remove the bag come bottling time.
6) Add disolved sugar solution, then make up to 21l with Tesco cheapy mineral water (17p per 2l bottle) so I can use the bottles to hold the finished GB.
7) Pitch hydrated yeast at approx 22 degrees.
8) I've bought both Splenda and lactose powder to add at bottling, will probably split the batch and tyry both to compare.
Will post results here when finally tasting it.
Actually, tbh, I'm not quite as happy as the little smiley icon seems to be.
Basically pleased, but my next batch will be done differently.
The results of this one first:
Nicely gingery and fairly hot, but not extremely so. In fact, as far as 'fiery gingeryness' goes, it's not far off just about right for me (I like it spicy) A tad hotter wouldn't be unwelcome. but not essential.
It's strong. I calculate abv at about 8%, just one pint and I can feel it. Nice! :wink:
Carbonation is very gentle but I think I may have actually forgotten to add priming sugar
Really can't remember. Gentle sparkle as opposed to volcanic fizz is actually quite pleasant.Now for the not so good.
At bottling, this brew was extremely thin. It somehow had an even thinner mouthfeel than water, if that's possible. It was also unenjoyably bone dry. I like dry, but this was OTT dry. So I added 5 teaspoonfulls of glycerin (total) and 70g of Tesco aspartame based sweetener.
That was the mistake. It now has an unpleasant artificial sweetener twang. Serves me right, I was too mean to spend the extra on Splenda, which is the recommended brand. Or perhaps the glycerin is contributing? Maybe Splenda wouldn't be any nicer.. Really don't know. Oh, and it now tastes too sweet as well.
But it's not undrinkable, so I'll learn from this and hope to improve my next one which I got going two days ago.
Recipe:
1kg grated root ginger
6 teaspoons of ground ginger
3kg white sugar
5 teaspoonfuls glycerin
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
4 teaspoons Wilco wine yeast
4 tsps yeast nutrient
6 oranges, zest from all, pulp & juice from 3, juice only from other 3
1) Grate ginger root, zest/pulp/juice oranges, boil all for 10 minutes with all other ingredients except the yeast.
2) Strain through sterilised colander into (sterilised) fv
3) Disolve sugar in hot, just below boilingwater for 20 minutes with a spoonful of citric acid (lemon juice would have done). I've read that this 'inverts' the sugar, making it easier and quicker for the yeast to metabolise the sugar.
4) Put strained ginger/orange etc into muslin bag which was weighted. Squeeze bag to get juice into brew (will repeat this squeeze at intervals during fermentation)
5) Tie bag with string and suspend from fv lid to keep it off the bottom - don't want to disturb the sediment when I remove the bag come bottling time.
6) Add disolved sugar solution, then make up to 21l with Tesco cheapy mineral water (17p per 2l bottle) so I can use the bottles to hold the finished GB.
7) Pitch hydrated yeast at approx 22 degrees.
8) I've bought both Splenda and lactose powder to add at bottling, will probably split the batch and tyry both to compare.
Will post results here when finally tasting it.
